One of my favorite features on my iPod is the shuffle feature. I love hitting that button and seeing what songs come up. Today I turned on shuffle and here are the first 5 songs I got:

Silent All These Years–Tori Amos

Mother Earth is a Vicious Crowd–Live

I Can Love You Better–Dixie Chicks

Glory Days–Bruce Springsteen

Survive–Rise Against

What I love most about shuffle is how 5 seemingly unrelated genres of music all blend together into a delectable auditory smoothie. Which, of course, got me thinking about my cooking.

I am not a good creator of recipes. I typically steal borrow from others and, when necessary, tweak the recipe to fit my preferences. Occasionally, however, I am able to pull together a variety of ingredients and come up with a recipe on my own that is too good not to share. In this case, it was my grilled cheese and avocado sandwich that I made with my friend Steph.

I love grilled cheese. If this lunch truck lived near me, I’d be broke and 400 pounds. I would eat a grilled cheese sandwich every day if I could. The first meal I ever ate with my husband was at a diner and guess what it was? Yup. Grilled cheese.

Normally, I’m a grilled cheese purist. Bread, American cheese, butter. Nothing else. Maybe a tomato. To me, there’s no point in messing with perfection. Except once and a while, you gotta go bold. Which I did with this version:

The Empty Kitchen’s Fancy Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:

Sourdough bread

Pepper jack cheese

White American cheese

Avocado

Tomato

Butter

Directions:

Assemble the sandwich, leaving one slice of bread unbuttered.

Place sandwich, buttered side down, in a nonstick pan (butter second slice once sandwich in is pan)

Grill until golden brown on both sides

I am a little strange as I eat my grilled cheese with ketchup (if you haven’t tried it this way, go make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich and do it. It’s totally worth it), and I’ve been doing it that way since I’m about 6 years old. Which is why when I ate this version without ketchup, I was totally shocked. A grilled cheese sandwich that doesn’t need ketchup?! Impossible! But it really didn’t need it. It didn’t need anything except chips and a soda.

I think that child looks a little evil. I imagine I look the same way when near a grilled cheese sandwich.